ISBN: 978-1-9051860-1-3 © Dr Manish Pandit 2019 !ii Dedicated To My Gurus and Divine Mother Kali !i Foreword 3067BCE: A Fresh Perspective on the Astronomy of the Mahabharata I made the film “Krishna: History or Myth” in 2008 after a set of severe arguments on the subject of the historicity of Sri Krishna and Sri Rama, one of which was with a junior doctor when working as a surgeon in 2002 in the West Midlands. I had come across several pieces of research which claimed to corroborate the astronomy of the Mahabharata war. Amongst these were the research by PV Vartak, (5561BCE) a senior MBBS doctor residing in Pune who I have had the pleasure of meeting years ago in Pune, the research by Dr Narahari Achar from Memphis (3067BCE), Balakrishna and Sengupta (2449BCE) among others. I never wanted to really make a film on the subject, but nobody else was willing, partly due to the cost involved in the shooting of such a film (those were the days when digital film cameras were only just about becoming affordable) and of the course nobody wanted to take the risk of making a film which most Indian, English language, Hinduphobic channels would not show. I also had to check and see which piece of research was actually true: 5561BCCE, 3067BCE, 3139BCE, 3043BCE or indeed 1478BCE or 2449BCE among others. It took me a lot of time to go through the various pieces of research from 2004 to 2007 and eventually after taking great care to !ii exclude the wrong pieces of research, I sat down and corroborated the research on Redshift. It was a laborious process in those days and computers used to crash more often after even basic searches. Only after I was satisfied that 3067BCE was the year of the war did I dare make the film “Krishna History or Myth”. It would be very difficult for me to make a film whose featured research could be easily debunked. Hence I ended up featuring the war proposal of 3067BCE, which is perhaps the most credible dating effort of the Mahabharata war ever proposed, in my film with interviews by Dr Narahari Achar. The film became a major success with screenings in 30+ countries and +1.5 million views at least. Then in 2015, I came across a set of different pieces of research by various researchers including Shri Nilesh Oak, which challenged the basis of 3067BCE and claimed that other dates (and only their dates) were the date of the war. I started examining these claims afresh and eventually last year in 2019, I started to re-read the Mahabharata and undertook a deep study of the astronomy references (I dug up my old 2008 notes on the Mahabharata). I eventually arrived at a modified theory of 3067BCE which includes a Tri- Pushya theory (for Krishna’s Mission of Peace), a new theory of Balarama’s pilgrimage, a new war theory to fix the 18th day of the war instead of the first day (thereby changing the first day of the war) and a fresh reasoning for Bhisma Moksha. I also took a completely different view of the entire comet theory of the Mahabharata, the reasoning for Saturn’s position at Rohini and indeed Jupiter’s position during the 17th day of the war. I have verified the astronomy surrounding Karna’s death and corroborated the 4 timelines of the war, providing scientific reasoning why these conditions are not fulfilled in other astronomy proposals. Dr Achar has given a fresh theory for Gautam Buddha’s Nirvana too. We have also provided a complete rebuttal of some dates for the war, 5561BCE gets a special chapter as does the so called “revolutionary theory of Vakra motion” which has been rebutted. Rebuttals to other dating efforts will feature on my blog as and when I have the time. I hope that this will serve as learning material for those people who come to learn the astronomy of the Mahabharata in the future. There are some short film links included in this book in various chapters which will clearly illustrate my point as well. !iii I would like to reiterate that 3067BCE is the only viable date of the Mahabharata war. I would like to give my deep and heartfelt gratitude to all my Gurus, the Divine Mother Kali, and Dr Narahari Achar. I would like to thank my late parents and especially my late father for all his support. I would also like to thank Smt. Jayasree Saranathan and of course Nilesh Oak whose challenge was partly what made me learn the astronomy of the Mahabharata in this manner. I would also like to thank PVR Narasimha Rao whose free software JHora made my life somewhat easier and DK Hari and Anuraag Saxena who provided me encouragement in this endeavour. I hope that this book will provide learning material for people who attend my free workshops on the Mahabharata. These are announced on my Twitter handle at regular intervals @mmpandit and on my astronomy Wordpress blog. Those who wish to look at my spiritual blog can go to: Je Suis My films are mostly available on two sites: 1: YouTube site: https://www.youtube.com/user/SaraswatiFilms 2: www.saraswatifilms.org I will slowly update the blog and my Twitter site with many more learning links and short films. Following me on Twitter and Facebook (my page is Saraswati Films) ensures that one can see all my films as they arrive. Thanks Dr Manish Pandit MBBS (Pune), FRCSEd (General Surgery), FRCSENT, MSc (Merit) Nuclear Medicine, CCT (Nuclear Medicine) Practising doctor and consultant in the Department of Physics and Nuclear Medicine, Senior Academic Tutor, University of Birmingham and Training Program Director (NM) West Midlands, United Kingdom Krishnamurti Jyotisha Visharad !iv Released on Hanuman Jayanti 2020 Jai Hanuman !v Table of Contents: CHAPTER 1: SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF 3067BCE 1 CHAPTER 2: KRISHNA’S MISSION OF PEACE 11 CHAPTER 3: BALARAMA’S PILGRIMAGE AND THE GADA YUDDHA 21 CHAPTER 4: FIXING THE POSITION OF SATURN 45 CHAPTER 5: FIXING THE POSITION OF OTHER PLANETS DURING THE WAR. 56 CHAPTER 6: ASTRONOMY AROUND KARNA’S DEATH 70 CHAPTER 7: MARS RETROGRESSION 81 CHAPTER 8: THE MYSTERY OF BHISHMA PARVA CHAPTER 3 88 CHAPTER 9: WHY THE MAHABHARATA WAR CANNOT START ON AN AMAVASYA 99 CHAPTER 10: MOONRISE DATA FROM THE 14TH NIGHT OF THE WAR 118 CHAPTER 11: CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF BHISMA MOKSHA DATA 131 CHAPTER 12: COMETS OR PLANETS AND WHY? 152 CHAPTER 13: COMETS THEORY 3067BCE 171 CHAPTER 14: ECLIPSES BEFORE THE MAHABHARATA WAR AND 3031BCE 182 CHAPTER 15: ASTRONOMY AROUND BUDDHA NIRVANA 195 CHAPTER 16: SO CALLED REVOLUTIONARY VAKRA MOTION: A REBUTTAL 205 CHAPTER 17: A REFUTATION OF 5561BCE 213 CHAPTER 18: A LIST OF MAHABHARATA REFERENCES 236 !vi !vii Scientific basis of the war proposal of 3067BCE Dr Manish Pandit Dec 2019 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF 3067BCE !1 Scientific basis of the war proposal of 3067BCE The Arundhati Vasistha observation: Te verse in the Mahabharata 02:31 of Bhisma Parva is as below: We already know that the Arundhati Vasistha observation is an omen based on the context of its verses as follows: SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF 3067BCE !2 Te problem with the observation of Arundhati leading Vasistha in the time period 11091BCE to 4508BCE is that at this point the observation is already happened for approximately 5500 years prior to 5561BCE and around a 1000 years aferward as well. Terefore this observation cannot qualify as an omen in the time period of 11091BCE to 4508BCE. Hence the only logical answer is that the Arundhati Vasistha observation would only qualify as an omen later than 4508BCE and unto 1000 BCE or so. Tis actually fts perfectly with the Mahabharata war proposal of 3067BCE. SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF 3067BCE !3 Scientifc Test of a Teory: Can 3067BCE be derived from frst principles. Is it reproducible? Te frst criteria of any piece of research is whether it is reproducible or not. In the case of 3067BCE as our proposed year of the Mahabharata war, we have excluded data sets of Saturn at Vishakha and Mars retrogression at Magha. Te former is excluded because a far more likely and logical alternative explanation is found from the text itself which points to two comets near Vishakha which are penetrating the Saptarishi mandala which is at a great distance from Vishakha. Te latter data set of Mars retrograde at Magha is discarded (along with Jupiter retrograde at Shravana) because it requires the Sun to be in two positions at the same time in the same verse (the Sun is required to simultaneously be near Satabhisha and near Pushya which is impossible). Hence Saturn at Rohini and Mars going retrograde before Jyestha/Antares and at Anuradha are clearly two angles of the triangle which have been used to fnd the date of the Mahabharata war. Saturn also has the well known reputation of causing calamitous war events during its transit of Rohini nakshatra as famous wars of the last centuries have shown. We explain each of these points in great detail in separate chapters within this book. Tus we can clearly see that without taking any recourse to Kaliyuga or anything else, that the basic data points of Saturn at Aldebaran/Rohini between 5600BCE and 500CE can be intersected with Mars going retrograde before Jyestha/Antares and at Anuradha. We can clearly reproduce 210+ data points for Saturn at Aldebaran/Rohini and this set of 210 data points reduces to around 19 data sets when Mars going retrograde before Jyestha/Antares and at Anuradha is intersected with it.